African American Genealogy Research

In honor of Black History Month and the contributions made by African Americans, here are curated files of African American Family History resources. These have been set up in digitally tabbed file folders–just select a tab and the file contents will be displayed.

LeVar Burton (Geordi La Forge of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and Kunta Kinte of the 1977 “Roots” miniseries) gave a powerful keynote address at last year’s RootsTech. Maybe you had to be there or maybe you had to have lived in America in the 70s when almost every household, probably with an average of ten TV channels, tuned in to watch Roots. When parents were torn between “is this too graphic for the kids” and “is this too important to not let them see?” Burton summed it up perfectly when he said ‘one family’s story changed how America saw slavery’ and that every story mattered. Black History Month celebrates all African Americans. From the first African American president to the most humble slave narrative, every story matters.

Don’t have African American or slave ancestry? Consider donating some time helping index records at the US Freedmen’s Bureau. They need volunteers to extract names & ages & family members from all types of records and put them in appropriate birth, marriage, and death indexes. No one should have to look through deeds of sale to find their kin.

Some ideas for African American genealogy research include:

SLAVERY – most African Americans have slave ancestry which makes the research more difficult because there are fewer records and the records created by slavery are objectionable

US FREEDMEN’S BUREAU – the US Freedmen’s Bureau has the best African American & slavery records and these records are being digitized and indexed but are only partially available online, new records are added regularly so check back for new and updated collections

EXPAND YOUR SEARCH – you’ll probably need to expand your ancestor search to include your ancestor’s relations and, if applicable, the slave owner & slave owner’s relations (look for the slave owner’s will, an estate inventory naming slaves and if they will be freed or go to someone else after the owner’s death)

MILITARY – Military records are great & Civil War pension applications are so valuable, they’re worth obtaining in their entirety

BEYOND INDEXES – if you don’t find what you need in indexes (where names have been extracted from all types of documents), you’ll have to steel yourself and master searching through property records, because slaves were not treated as persons, but as property; search slave insurance records, runaway slave newspaper advertisements, property deeds (slaves being some of the last property mentioned), loan collaterals, county taxes (noting slave owners), estate publications (estate value may be low even though they owned many slaves), court records/judgments, and any financial transactions

NETWORK – descendants of slave-owners may unknowingly hold family records, letters, etc. in their private collections that will unlock your past & you may have to navigate how to successfully reach out to them

LIBRARIES & SOCIETIES – local libraries and genealogical or historical societies in the locale where an ancestor lived may have the valuable records you need-don’t underestimate societies & libraries

CONNECT – most genealogists specialize in a locale or ethnicity, join social media sites and follow bloggers and genealogists who specialize in African American or slave research-the techniques you’ll need to master are different and you should let a professional be your guide

DNA – if you hit a brick wall, modern DNA testing with ethnicity, triangulation, & shared matches may be a necessary step in your research

THE NEVERENDING STORY – this list of resources will never be complete in any way and I haven’t added collections at subscription sites (unless I did so by accident); I absolutely will if it’s by request, but I personally hate anticipating a free collection and then hitting a paywall

General Freedmen Bureau Records Name Search– a FamilySearch site “The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (the Freedmen’s Bureau) was created in 1865 at the end of the American Civil War to supervise relief efforts including education, healthcare, food and clothing, refugee camps, legalization of marriages, employment, labor contracts, and securing back pay, bounty payments and pensions.”

General Freedmen Bureau Records Name Search– a FamilySearch site “The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (the Freedmen’s Bureau) was created in 1865 at the end of the American Civil War to supervise relief efforts including education, healthcare, food and clothing, refugee camps, legalization of marriages, employment, labor contracts, and securing back pay, bounty payments and pensions.”

African American Marriages URL is http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~janderse/marriages/ (RootsWeb site at Ancestry that is temporarily down)

General

General Freedmen Bureau Records Name Search – a FamilySearch site “The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (the Freedmen’s Bureau) was created in 1865 at the end of the American Civil War to supervise relief efforts including education, healthcare, food and clothing, refugee camps, legalization of marriages, employment, labor contracts, and securing back pay, bounty payments and pensions.”

United States, Freedmen’s Branch Records, 1872-1878, bounty claims, labor complaints, pension claims; information may include: “Name(s) of the primary individual(s), Name of the freedman’s former owner, Names of family members, Residence, Age, Date of the record, and Birth, marriage or death dates and places”

History & Oral Histories

African American Biographical Database(1790-1950) “The African American Biographical Database is a resource of first resort when you are looking for biographical information, including photographs and illustrations, for African Americans.”

First-Person Narratives of the American South “First-Person Narratives of the American South” is a collection of diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, travel accounts, and ex-slave narratives written by Southerners. The majority of materials in this collection are written by those Southerners whose voices were less prominent in their time, including African Americans, women, enlisted men, laborers, and Native Americans.”

Voices from the Days of Slavery “All known recordings of former slaves in the American Folklife Center are included in this presentation. Some are being made publicly available for the first time and several others already available now include complete transcriptions.”

Lowcountry Africana a free website for African American Genealogy in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, with research tips for how to begin African American genealogy research.

See Libraries, Museums, & Archives for other Slave Narratives

Insurance

Slavery Era Insurance Policies Registry – a pdf from the Illinois State Government with policies from the United States Life Insurance Company of New York, New York Life Insurance Company, & Aetna Life Insurance Company. This includes names of slaves from 10 states and the District of Columbia.

Slavery Era Insurance Report prepared for the State of Iowa after a request for any insurance company doing business in Iowa to report slavery era insurance policies

Libraries, Museums, & Archives

DPLA – the Digital Public Library of American allows you to search across many US Libraries’ digital collections. A search of “African American Obituaries” found 10 results, two of which were family bible records spanning 200 years with slave genealogies; a search for “Slave deaths” returned plantation ledgers with names of slaves and births and deaths for each slave family; searches for African American births, slave deaths, slave will, slave inventory, probate, land records, bible records, etc are ideas for more searches. (Remember to reset your search filters each time.)

Buffalo Soldiers National Museum – “BSNM is the only museum dedicated primarily to preserving the legacy and honor of the African-American soldier in defense of the United States of America from the Revolutionary War to present.” The Cheyenne Tribe Native American warriors gave the soldiers the nickname “Wild Buffalo” out of respect for the 10th Cavalry (African American soldiers’) fierce fighting ability. The name Buffalo soldiers stuck and became a generic term referencing all African American soldiers.

Buffalo Soldiers – African American Civil War soldiers sent west to fight in the Indian Wars

Buffalo Soldiers Database – this is a pdf document in alphabetical order by surname listing Buffalo Soldiers. The information it provides may include: Last Name, First Name, Occupation, Place of birth, Age, Date, Enlistment date?, Enlistment Place, Regiment, ROE ref.

Blogs, Bloggers, Researchers

AfriGeneas – An African American genealogy research site with online databases, research tips, and other resources.

The African-Native American Website A founding member of AfriGeneas, Angela Walton-Raji is a genealogist who specializes in African and Native American research. “Her great-grandparents were African slaves of Choctaw Indians, and that her Walton ancestors were among several thousand Africans who were enslaved by Native Americans, including those who migrated west on the Trail of Tears.”

Who is Nicka Smith? “Nicka Smith is a professional photographer, speaker, and documentarian with more than 18 years of experience as a genealogist. She is the host of BlackProGen LIVE, a web show focused on people of color genealogy and family history.”

Our Black Ancestry by Sharon Leslie Morgan, a founding member of AfriGeneas and Diana Roman, a descendant of one of the largest slaveholding families in American history.

Lowcountry Africanaa free website for African American Genealogy in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, with research tips for how to begin African American genealogy research.

Caribbeana volumes at Internet Archive – a few references to named slaves, use “Search Inside” feature to search a volume

West Indies

A Guide to the Letterbook for the Simon Plantation, St. Kitts – authored by Samuel Cary. “Throughout the letterbook, Cary provides information about the African slaves owned by the plantation, listing about 300 at one point. He describes the shipping of slaves, the purchase of slaves, their labor and health, and the escape and death of slaves.”

Haiti

A Guide to the Jeremie Papers – possibly including slave information

If you have a favorite resource to add, including your own African American blog or forum, please leave a comment on the OnGenealogy Facebook page and we’d be happy to include more resources. We’re still planning to switch to a new website soon and allow on-site comments and permit registered users to add resources to this site directly. Best in your research and enjoy Black History Month!

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